No. 11 September 20, 1996

L.I.V.E. DX

(Low Impact, Vegetarian, Environmentally Safe DX)

Shhhhh. No one's listening.

Actually, I'm thrilled that no one reads this column for a number of reasons:

  1. “Tree in the forest”. If no one reads it, does it exist in the first place? Saves me a lot of work and thirty days of worrying about my next subject.
  2. “Weightless in a vacuum”. I'm pretty much free to digress and meander. No one's writing me angry letters or calling on the `phone to tell me I got some stupid, meaningless fact wrong. In fact, I'll make up my own facts, and that's a fact.
  3. “Lonely in Mensa”. I've been told that the subject, DX, is too complicated and technical. Goodness. That makes me complicated and technical, a complex, sensitive, new-age guy.

Let's clear this up right now. There ain't nothing technical or complicated about DX. Some of the lowest recorded IQ's are on the honor roll. In fact, it pays to be a bit of a dimwit. Who else would spend hours screaming two letters at a box with a bunch of numbers on it?

So, here are the easy steps to working DX. Cut this out and paste it on your fridge:

  1. Turn on your radio.
  2. Locate a white card that came in the mail. This is your license. Look in the corner of this card for a group of letters with a number inside. This is your “callsign”. Write this on a stick-on note and paste it on your radio.
  3. Turn the big knob on the radio until the digits say “14.200”. Take the microphone in your left hand, and turn the knob clockwise. Stop when you hear a bunch of screaming and yelling.
  4. If you get to 14.350 without any yelling, return to #3, unless you become hungry. In that case, get a Slim Jim.
  5. When you hear the yelling, stop turning the knob, squeeze the button on the mike, refer to your “callsign”. Scream the last two letters of your “callsign”. Release the button.
  6. If you do not hear a faraway voice repeat your letters, return to #5.
  7. When you hear your letters, squeeze the button and loudly say your entire “callsign” and “five-nine, over.” Release the button.
  8. Turn off your radio. You are now a DX-er.

One other thing: You must have no ethics. No self-respecting DX-er would hesitate a millisecond to send a greenback or two to Libya, North Korea, Yemen, Nigeria, Iran, Iraq, etc… if it meant a confirmation (“QSL”) from a needed country. Mary Ann Crider, WA3HUP, will supply the individual box numbers of all the Libyan operators of 5A1A. (Mary Ann, by the way, is one of the great “QSL Managers”, expediting cards from all kinds of rare stations over many, many years.)

In keeping with the spirit of ethic-less-ness, a giant expedition to the Union of Myanmar by the Central Arizona DX Association is scheduled to coincide with the CQ World-Wide DX Contest, November 16-25. The dictatorship has declared 1996 “Visit Myanmar Year.”

If you want a deeper understanding of the opium business that underlies the Myanmar economy, see the Condé Nast Traveler magazine, June, 1996 pp. 132-141, 166-173. “…a convenient way to clean up drug profits.” The XZ1N expedition will be warmly welcomed where Rudyard Kipling saw the flying fishes, and no doubt, considerable other apparitions.

But what the hell. Ham radio crosses borders because it is apolitical, and these soirees make the avocation thrilling and dangerous. Up into the 1970's the FCC maintained a list of countries that U.S. amateurs were forbidden to contact. Someone must have discovered that Hams only say “five-nine, over” to these countries and ultimately concluded that there was no danger to national security.

In the last month, there has been decent propagation to Africa and Asia, a chance to work J59ON in Guinea-Bissau. It seems the Germans are running out of places to go where they can wear Bermuda shorts. J59 is the final frontier for Dieter, DJ9ON and the gang. Guinea-Bissau has some great surf. Hängen zehn!

FT5WE has been on regularly from Crozet Island. Although Crozet is in the Antarctic, there are hot springs and lots of lobster and a nice mountain to stretch a low band antenna from. He's been showing up almost every night on 40, 7045 listening around 7200 and quite loud.

5X1T is workable from Uganda. It's Peter, ON6TT, who packs a soldering iron for World Relief. Peter actually thrives in mud huts, mosquito-infested swamps and Rwandan refugee camps. It must beat those traffic jams in Brussels.

And last, the results of secret research from the LIVE Lab:

Listen any morning/afternoon on 17 meters or 20 meters SSB. You'll hear toothless, disjointed descriptions of bodily functions, surgery and political misconceptions.

Listen any morning/afternoon to high-speed Morse code, CW, and you'll hear the same peers sending musical, error-free code with perfect spelling and intelligent, well-organized content.

Could it be that another part of the brain picks up when the left hemisphere deteriorates, and that this stronger right brain can only be reached through the “music” of CW?

Is CW a possible cure for degenerative brain diseases? Are we going to eliminate CW just as it is about to save the human race?

I just realized - if you're reading this - Stop it immediately!

…Harvey, N6HL

Back to 'Loop Literature'